Kindle News

Amazon has announced it will end support for its pre-2012 Kindle devices on May 20, 2026. This means readers will not be able to add new books to those devices. Many vintage ereader users are upset by the news – including me, the proud user of a 4th-generation Kindle from 2011. With roughly a month to act, I decided to add as many books as possible to my beloved 4th-gen while I still could.

I would try Kindle-maxxing.

How could I (legally and ethically!) add a bunch of books to my vintage 4th-gen in a price-effective way?

With help from Project Gutenberg.

Project Gutenberg is an online library of free eBooks that are in the public domain, meaning their copyright has expired. At the time of this writing, that means books published prior to 1931. Project Gutenberg offers eBooks in a few different formats, including epub, which could be sent to Kindle. (See their Reading Options page for more.)

So, I had my Kindle-maxxing strategy: adding as many eBooks from Project Gutenberg to my 4th-gen.

I had to focus on the classics, but that was fine – I had a few classics on my TBR, and I could read new releases on the Kindle app anyway. The problem was: what did I want to read?

Readers Advisory: Public Domain Classics

In the library world, the art of suggesting someone’s next read is called Readers Advisory, or RA. (And we have a blog post about it!)

First, you identify what the reader is looking for. In my case, I wanted classics in the public domain, but since I mostly use my 4th-gen when I travel, I specifically wanted books that were engaging: that had memorable characters, were plot-heavy, and/or raised interesting questions.

Next, you explore! KCPL has book lists, including a Must Read Classics list, and Readers Advisory tools. Then, I looked at Project Gutenberg’s most popular downloads list, Movie List and Gothic Fiction list. I also searched on Reddit, a social forum website, for recommendations. A compiled list of suggestions is at the end of this post!

Often, you uncover something new about your reading tastes during the RA process. Turns out I like gothic fiction and books described as... swashbuckling? Surprising, but great!

Thanks to these recommendations, I’ve been downloading books to my 4th-gen like a fiend – a law-abiding fiend who respects copyright and DRM laws.

I still look forward to borrowing eBooks from KCPL to read on my Kindle app, as well as Libby and Hoopla, but for the record: print books would never do this to me...!

I hope you can find your next read – in any format – with the library!

Project Gutenberg Recommendations

I saw these books recommended most frequently: 

• Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables)
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
• The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
• Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (I honestly don’t know what this is, but I’ve downloaded it!)

As a nonfiction collection development librarian, I would also recommend:

• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
• Emily Dickinson's poetry
• Oscar Wilde’s plays and essays
• Jonathan Swift’s essays
• Epics like The Iliad, The Odyssey, and Beowulf